The board chair for Seine River School Division doesn't mince words when asked what we can expect for the upcoming year in the division; prepare to deal with COVID-19.

Wendy Bloomfield says she was initially surprised when someone suggested the pandemic would last longer than a few months. But now, she believes we will still be dealing with the virus during the next school year.

As Bloomfield looks at what this upcoming year might hold instore for SRSD, she says it’s a challenge to do any planning due to the nature of constant changes as we work through the pandemic.

Plans for all teaching staff to get together for a large divisional in-service are possibly going to have to change a few times, we never know when it might become necessary to switch to remote learning for students, Bloomfield explains.

“There’s been so many words that have come out in this pandemic that have almost taken on new meaning as we’ve worked through it. But ‘pivot’ is one that you hear all the time and we’re doing about-faces almost every day,” she says. “And we have to be ready to pivot at a moment’s notice.”

Bloomfield says remote learning is not the greatest but it is workable.